Urban Naxals: How the term came about

The 2004 Maoist document gives more clarity on this issue. It explains that the focus has to be on organising the working class, which is “the leadership of our revolution”.

NEW DELHI: Tuesday’s multi-city police raids leading to the arrests of five people with alleged Maoist links has once again brought the debate on the concept of “urban Naxalism”. This, however, is an old Maoists strategy to focus on urban centres for leadership, organise masses, build a united front and engage in military tasks such as providing personnel, material and infrastructure.

A 2004 Communist Party of India (Maoist) document titled “Urban Perspective” elaborates on this strategy with one of the most important focus areas being on gaining leadership from urban areas. In relation, the security establishment believes that with ageing leadership the Maoists have been looking at cities and towns for leaders. It feels that this is keeping in line with the tradition that most of their top leaders are well educated people from universities.

On Tuesday, Pune Police arrested five persons across different cities- Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in connection with a probe on the Bhima-Koregaon riots in January. This development is in continuation of arrests of five people- claimed to be top urban Maoists- made in June for allegedly being involved in organising a public meeting right before the caste violence in Bhima-Koregaon broke out. The police then had presented a letter that implicated the accused in a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister.

Sources in the security establishment add that the CPI (Maoist) give immense importance to its ‘urban movement’ not just for the leadership, but for providing supplies, technologies, expertise, information and logistic support by overground activists.

The 2004 Maoist document gives more clarity on this issue. It explains that the focus has to be on organising the working class, which is “the leadership of our revolution”. “It is the task of the party in the urban areas to mobilise and organise the proletariat in performing its crucial leadership role,” the document reads.

It adds that the main focus of the Maoists’ urban work is to organise the masses, including the working class, students, middle class employees, intellectuals, women, dalits and religious minorities. It explains on the need to create front organisations for extending the reach of the organisation.

Another key point is that while work must be done on the organised sector, there is also a need to mobilise the unorganised segment as well. This it explains is for recruiting cadres and developing leadership. The document also points towards building a united front of all secular forces and persecuted religious minorities against “Hindu fascist forces”.

Performing the required military tasks is also an important issue. The document clarifies the military strategy as establishing the base areas first in the countryside where the “enemy is militarily weak” and then capturing the cities, which are the “bastions of the enemy forces”. It adds that the urban movement should involve sending cadre to the countryside, supplying arms and ammunition, infiltrating enemy ranks and sabotage actions.